The greatest wipeout in sports history – a 4.5 story flailing drop to the hardwood. Skip to the slo-mo’s at the end and watch Jake’s shoes ejecting for a sense of just how hard he hit. And then he walks away.

‘When one reads any strongly individual piece of writing, one has the impression of seeing a face somewhere behind the page’, wrote George Orwell, in his 1939 essay on Charles Dickens.

From 9th August 2008, you will be able to gather your own impression of Orwell’s face from reading his most strongly individual piece of writing: his diaries. The Orwell Prize is delighted to announce that, to mark the 70th anniversary of the diaries, each diary entry will be published on this blog exactly seventy years after it was written, allowing you to follow Orwell’s recuperation in Morocco, his return to the UK, and his opinions on the descent of Europe into war in real time. The diaries end in 1942, three years into the conflict.

What impression of Orwell will emerge? From his domestic diaries (which start on 9th August), it may be a largely unknown Orwell, whose great curiosity is focused on plants, animals, woodwork, and – above all – how many eggs his chickens have laid. From his political diaries (from 7th September), it may be the Orwell whose political observations and critical thinking have enthralled and inspired generations since his death in 1950. Whether writing about the Spanish Civil War or sloe gin, geraniums or Germany, Orwell’s perceptive eye and rebellion against the ‘gramophone mind’ he so despised are obvious.

Orwell wrote of what he saw in Dickens: ‘He is laughing, with a touch of anger in his laughter, but no triumph, no malignity. It is the face of a man who is always fighting against something, but who fights in the open and is not frightened, the face of a man who is generously angry— in other words, of a nineteenth-century liberal, a free intelligence, a type hated with equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls.’

Back to School With the Butthole Surfers

Gibby Haynes is 50, but he’s still off the wall like he was in the ’80s, when he and the rest of his Butthole Surfers were passing off hallucinogenic-fueled performance-art shows as “music” for the likes of a young, impressionable Daniel Johnston and other Austin freaks looking to get their psych on outside of cosmic country.

“It’s a big que sera, fuckin’ Hallmark, fuckin’ Valentine’s Day, kinda fuzzy- feeling dealie,” Haynes says over the phone about the Surfers’ classic lineup—including guitarist Paul Leary, bassist Jeff Pinkus, and stand-up drummers King Coffey and Teresa “Nervosa” Taylor (the weirdo in Slacker who tries to pawn off the Madonna pap smear)—reuniting for the first time since their 2002 reincarnation at Japan’s Fuji Festival, this time for a 14-date run with the Paul Green School of Rock Music All-Stars.How ass-backwards. The Surfers are (or were, back in the day) totally X-rated. Among other acts of decadence, their shows featured a naked dancer named Kathleen Lynch, a/k/a “Ta-Da the Shit Lady,” whom Haynes reportedly had sex with onstage while Leary punctured the club’s speakers with a screwdriver. They used films of penis-reconstruction surgery andFaces of Death–type car wrecks as backdrops. And, of course, they got a real kick out of cross-dressing and arson, too. Meanwhile, the fact that the 2003 movie School of Rock is based on the grade-school bashers who receive tutelage at the Paul Green School of Rock Music chain (with Jack Black starring as a non-anal version of Paul himself) just about says it all. But this is of little consequence to Haynes, who insists that Surfers gigs are way tamer than in the olden days and that it’s now more or less about the music.

“It’s just really fun,” he adds of the collaboration, facilitated by fellow shtick-rock band Ween. “I mean, they’re kids, and some of ’em are really, really talented. You can see the ones who are gonna be totally fucked up when they’re older.”

Seminal Surfers albums like Psychic . . . Powerless . . . Another Man’s Sac, their 1985 debut, with its innovative tape-looping up against Haynes’s perverted, bullhorn- amplified, “Gibbytronix”-inflected gibberish, are indeed lessons in coordinated chaos lost in translation as noise. But in order to properly convey the older, borderline- improvisational hardcore-punk songs that constitute most of the Surfers’ set lists on this tour, some live theatrics are essential. That’s where Sheehan and Johnson strike again: The smoke machines, projectors, and strobe lights are part of their double-duty tour, thanks to their work in the same capacity during a string of Haynes solo shows in New York (where he relocated five years ago) that preceded this tour. “By now, we’re into a groove on how to do that,” says Johnson, who also plays in a band called the Will.

Cuckoo’s Nest Hospital to be Torn Down

Oregon State Hospital, the mental institution where the 1975 movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was filmed, is making way for a new complex. Most of the dilapidated, 125-year-old main building will be torn down and replaced starting this fall.

Although mean Nurse Ratched was pure fiction, the Oregon State Hospital has struggled with some very real troubles over the years, including overcrowding, crumbling floors and ceilings, outbreaks of scabies and stomach flu, sexual abuse of children by staff members, and patient-on-patient assaults.

Politicians had been talking for years about the need to replace the hospital, but didn’t get serious about it until a group of legislators made a grim discovery during a 2004 tour: the cremated remains of 3,600 mental patients in corroding copper canisters in a storage room. The lawmakers were stunned.

“Nobody said anything to anybody,” said Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney, who dubbed the chamber “the room of lost souls.”

The remains belonged to patients who died at the hospital from the late 1880s to the mid-1970s, when mental illness was considered so shameful that many patients were all but abandoned by their families in institutions.

Milos Forman, the director, lived for six weeks at the institution and had his actors study real patients, according to a 1975 account in Rolling Stone magazine. Nicholson became depressed because of what he saw, including electroshock being administered to a patient.

The front section of the building, including the cupola, will be preserved as a museum on the history of mental health care.

Other parts of the building were abandoned decades ago and are now a ghostly sight. The paint has been scoured off the bricks by the weather and the passage of time, and the wings are cluttered with old equipment, fallen plaster and piles of pigeon droppings. The third floor is so rotted it is not safe to walk on. The building is also contaminated with lead paint and asbestos.

‘Shank’ website is aimed at the kids who carry knives

All in the game … list of SuperPoke! icons includes smacks, hugs, bouquets, smiles – and horrifying ‘shank’ threat

By JAMES CLENCH and JONATHAN WEINBERG

THE uncle of murdered Harry Potter actor Rob Knox last night said Facebook bosses should be arrested for allowing a vile knifing game.

Members of the social networking site have been using a chilling blade icon to virtually “shank” – street slang for stab – other users.

The news comes amid an epidemic of knifings across the country, with tragic Rob, 18, among the victims.

Uncle John, 57, branded the website “disgusting” and said the game targeted teen thugs who carry blades.

Knife victim … tragic actor Rob Knox
He said: “Why the hell would a social networking site for teenagers put something like this forward?

“If the authorities really want to get tough on knife crime, the CEO or directors of Facebook should be arrested for inciting violence.”

“The stupidity of having this on their site is unbelievable. And they deliberately use the street term ‘shanked’, which is even worse. They are targeting the kids who are on street corners carrying knives.”

Facebook allowed the virtual knife threat as part of its SuperPoke! application.

Members use the blade icon to deliver the “attack” to any friend or stranger who has a profile. The victim then receives a chilling message saying they have been “shanked”. The SuperPoke! system is a favourite among teens, with more than a BILLION virtual actions sent – including kisses, hugs and slaps.

The software is made by US firm Slide, which tells users: “Use SuperPoke to do stuff to your friends. If you get lucky, they might just do it back to you.”

‘Hair’s’ bohemian chic is still hip

BY JOE DZIEMIANOWICZ

Monday, July 21st 2008, 4:00 AM

‘Hair’ starts previews Monday night in Central Park.

When “Hair” starts previews Monday in Central Park, it will be a flashback to the 1960s, the decade the rock musical debuted. That era that looks a lot like today: an unpopular war was raging, young people were keyed up about activism, and people let it all hang out — Naked Cowboy-style — to express their freedom.

But in this reincarnation of the seminal show at the Delacorte Theater, some of the biggest things on parade are the costumes. “Hair” costumer Michael McDonald looked to rock stars — Donovan, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin — for inspiration in putting together the looks for the cast in the groundbreaking musical about youths rebelling against conservative authority and the Vietnam War.

Director Diane Paulus, who also staged the concert version of the show last summer, was a stickler for authenticity, says McDonald: “It’s so easy to make it look like a Halloween party.” No-nos included tie-dyed shirts and elephant bell-bottoms.

“Too ’70s,” he says. He speaks with authority. McDonald researched the era extensively, studying footage of the ’67 Monterey Pop Festival for reference.

Sid and Marty Krofft are still pulling the strings

Krofft Picture Archive

THEIR HEYDAY: Sid, left, and Marty Krofft with Jack Wild, the young star of “H.R. Pufnstuf,” which premiered in 1969. The show’s premise — a child stumbles upon a hidden fantasy world — turned into a winning formula for the Kroffts, who also created “Lidsville” and “Land of the Lost.” There’s a new appetite for their low-budget shows.

Nearly 40 years after the psychedelic splash of ‘H.R. Pufnstuf,’ the bickering puppeteers believe their time has finally come.

By Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, July 26, 2008

Hollywood is often described as a dream factory, but really it’s just as often a salvage yard. Anxious studio executives would rather bet their $100-million budgets on nostalgia than on new ideas, which is why, against all odds, Sid and Marty Krofft are back in business.

The Krofft brothers, both now in their 70s, have a showbiz story that dates back to the final days of vaudeville. But for children of the Nixon years, their name is the brand behind some of the era’s strangest TV programming: shows such as “H.R. Pufnstuf,” “Lidsville,” “Land of the Lost” and “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.”

Those low-budget shows had rubber-costumed actors, fluorescent puppets and psychedelic sets that were by the 1980s hopelessly dated; and by the end of that decade, the same could be said of the Kroffts.

Today, though, thanks to the Hollywood appetite for all things kitschy and high-concept, the Kroffts are poised for the biggest payday of their career — unless, of course, they strangle each other first.

“Things did get lean, but we never gave up,” said Sid, 78, the smiling, soft-spoken dreamer of the two.

There are still plenty of young dreamers, oddballs and colorful hucksters in the entertainment industry, but, really, the modern corporate era has wiped away most of its greasepaint charm. In the flashbulb era, big stars were bigger and tall tales were taller.

For example, take the celebrated Krofft family history: Sid and Marty are supposedly fifth-generation puppeteers, dating to the opening of the Krofft Theater in the early 1700s in Athens. It is a truly amazing tale and cited in almost every article every written about them, and it’s the first line of their bio.

The Olympics’ Strangest MomentsExtraordinary but True Stories from the History of the Olympic Games

Updated edition

Geoff Tibballs (Author)

The world’s greatest sporting occasion has historically been filled with unusual occurrences and peculiar situations. In 1908, Dorando Pietri was stripped of his gold medal in the marathon after he was helped over the finish line by over-anxious officials. From “Eric the Eel” of Equatorial Guinea—the slowest swimmer in the history of the games—to Fred Lorz, who was disqualified after it was discovered that he had hitched a lift in a car during his marathon run, this is an exciting collection of the most humorous and jaw-dropping stories from the Olympic games.

Geoff Tibballs is the author of numerous books, including Great Sporting Scandals, Motor Racing’s Strangest Races, and Royalty’s Strangest Characters.

Art Makes Such Weird Bedfellows

Pretty Ugly The group exhibition, split between Gavin Brown’s Enterprise and the Maccarone Gallery, features works from about 75 artists, including Bernard Buffet’s “Les Folles.” More Photos>

Everyone-into-the-pool gallery group shows are always a welcome distraction in a steamy New York midsummer, even when the water is tepid and unsightly matter floats to the top, as is the case in “Pretty Ugly,” a group exhibition split between Gavin Brown’s Enterprise and the Maccarone Gallery.

There are about 75 artists on the guest list, though it feels like a cast of thousands, so logic-defying is the lineup. Hannah Wilke rubs shoulders with Marsden Hartley, and both press flesh with Elizabeth Peyton, Rudolph Schwarzkogler and Bruce LaBruce.

Like most art world shindigs, this is an intensely networked affair. Lots of best friends of friends — artists who are the partners of curators, who are planning retrospectives of other artists, who are represented by the galleries presenting the show — along with a few bused-in oddballs (two Stanislaws, Szukalski and Witkiewicz) and recruits from the modernist mothball brigade (Pierre Alechinsky, Bernard Buffet).

Summer shows of this kind can be newsy; they can indicate shifts in direction in art that will unroll in the season ahead. But this one doesn’t feel that way. In fact it feels a little old. Its basic premise is that our ideas of beauty in art are changing, but we’ve known that for years. Pretty and ugly have been the twin poles of contemporary figure painting for ages now. Merged together — and they are always merging — they turn into weird. And weirdness is, basically, what “Pretty Ugly” is about.

An installation of such paintings across a front wall at Maccarone establishes a couple of things: first, the show as a whole will be organized by themes; and second, it will be an old-new mix. In the floral lineup we find a 1918 Abraham Walkowitz still life next to Andy Warhol’s 1964 poppies along with Mark Grotjahn’s “Angry Flower (Big Nose, Baby Moose)” (2003), all bracketed by Takashi Murakami smiley faces from just last year.

The sculptor Stanislaw Szukalski (1893-1987), also from Poland, was an art star in his day, so highly regarded that, when he was at mid-career, the Polish government erected a museum in his honor. When the building was leveled by German planes in 1939, Szukalski fled to the United States and settled in Burbank, Calif.

Although he lived in obscurity there, he was not inactive. Among other things he formulated a universalist theory of history called Zermatism, based on the premise that all human life originated on Easter Island, that Polish was the source of all languages, and that a race of malevolent Yetis was destroying civilization as we know it.

His freely espoused aesthetic and political views gained attention in California cultural circles: he was as rabidly anti-Picasso as he was pro-Ronald Reagan and regarded art critics as the scum of the earth. The attraction of his neo-Symbolist sculpture — a life-size bronze bust in the show of the Polish military hero Bor Komorowski looks like a sad-eyed Darth Vader — is harder to fathom.

Pickles add punch to summertime meals

It wasn’t so long ago that every well-dressed American dinner table was bejeweled with an assortment of them — emerald green tomatoes, ruby red beets and opalescent pearl onions, as well as less glamorous (though certainly no less delicious) okra, mushrooms and watermelon rind. The pickle tray was a standard part of a Sunday supper.

Nowadays, almost the only pickle you’ll find is cucumber. And while there’s nothing wrong with your basic bread-and-butter, half-sour or dill, there are so many other possibilities to explore.

What about radishes, for example, pickled pink, with a refreshing sweet-tart bite to match their crisp texture? Or tangy peppers, yellow turmeric-stained zucchini or even surprisingly savory pickled grapes?

First, a little definition: A pickle is a fruit or a vegetable that is preserved through acidity. Because most harmful bacteria have a hard time surviving in a low-pH environment, pickling was an important part of preserving the harvest in the days before refrigeration.

THOUGH ordinary, white distilled vinegar can be used for most pickles, you can get a different effect by substituting apple cider or Asian rice vinegar. Similarly, don’t feel bound to the common pickling spices of mustard, peppercorns, dill and their brethren. Try using cloves, allspice or cinnamon, fresh ginger or dried chiles.

Lumley attacks ‘obscure’ new poetry

When Joanna Lumley agreed to pen an introduction to a collection of poems, she probably thought she was simply doing a favour for an unknown poet in need of a publicity boost. Instead, the Absolutely Fabulous star has caused controversy by publishing views on modern poetry that have offended some of Britain’s best-known writers.

Rather than limiting her comments to the book in question, Lumley attacked contemporary poetry, dismissing ‘so much’ of it as maddeningly obscure and, at worst, self-indulgent. At the other extreme, she argued that less demanding poetry risked becoming humdrum and commonplace.

The actress was a judge for the Booker Prize in 1985 and led readings of Sir John Betjeman’s poetry at the 1996 unveiling of a stone tablet to the late Poet Laureate at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Lumley wrote the controversial introduction to Liz Cowley’s forthcoming book, A Red Dress and Other Poems. She went on to say: ‘It is a rare modern poem that achieves the balance between being challenging and accessible.’

Lumley praises Cowley for preferring to call herself a writer than a poet: ‘Liz would never dream of describing herself as a “poet”. She even dislikes the very word “poetry” because she feels there is a divisive ring to it, as if the genre were up there on a rarefied pedestal.’

But her comments have drawn the wrath of many of Britain’s leading poets. Ian McMillan, presenter of BBC Radio 3’s The Verb, poet in residence at Barnsley football club and a contender for the next Poet Laureate, accused Lumley of being ill-informed. ‘I suspect that she hasn’t read very widely because she’s ignoring the fact that poetry in the 21st century is a broad church,’ he said.

Frey Goes Arty: ‘The Idea Was To Do A Cool Book That Would Piss People Off’

James Frey (right) and Terry Richardson grin at the prospect of ticking folks off at their book talk.

Controversy-friendly author James Frey and photographer Terry Richardson don’t much believe in rules, so the two intentional outsiders teaming up on a book/photo project makes a sort of sense. For those who don’t know that Frey is co-partner of Half Gallery with Andy Spade and Bill Powers, the move may surprise, but for the writer himself, it was just a matter of time.

“I’m much more part of the art world than I am the literary world,” Frey said before the duo’s Thursday night talk at Manhattan’s Strand Bookstore. “I wanted to make a cool, sort of radical, fun art book. I have no interest in being called a memoirist. I’m a writer.”

Frey envisioned Wives, Wheels, Weapons in the vein of late 19th- and early 20th-century collaborations between writers and artists such as Baudelaire and Matisse. “When I was in Paris, I saw these books and thought they were the coolest fucking things I’d ever seen,” Frey told us. “I went over to Terry’s studio and said, ‘Dude, you want to do a book?'”

Publisher/friend to Frey and Richardson John McWhinnie moderated the two, who wore matching white t-shirts and khakis. “Moneybags McWhinnie” (so dubbed because he financed the project, i.e. put Frey, Richardson and his “camera club” up at the Chateau Marmont for five days in L.A.), saw the book’s brief chapters as standalone vignettes.

“I was drawn to what is emblematic of L.A.: car culture, the immersion of highways and being stuck on freeways. It was also the idea of L.A. culture, gang culture, East coast, West coast,” he said of Wheels and Weapons. “Then, what else to do? When James told me they decided to edit out the passage we called ‘Wives,’ I said, ‘That’s what we’ve got to do. That’s the trifecta.’ Terry [was] telling a story in pictures that James was telling in words.”

Was the alliterative title deliberate, we wanted to know? “No, it was a funny title,” shrugged Frey, “sort of ridiculous and telling.”

The softcover shot came out of a photo shoot at a gun club in L.A. “Terry just poured out all these casings on the floor and laid this .44 Magnum on it, and the casings and the Magnum were just sparkling. It was almost like guns as jewels. It was beautiful and fucked up,” according to McWhinnie.

Photos for the “Wives” section were shot at the home of Apocalypse Nowscreenplay writer John Milius. Milius and his wife happened to be avid IRA members, so the ’70s-era style house (a “fucking armory,” as Richardson puts it) came stocked with ammunition and shooting trophies. Over 150 rolls of film were produced during a series of 17-hour days spent with up to 25 models arrayed before seven cameras.

“I just sort of make it up as I go along,” Richardson said, swigging from an unmarked plastic flask. “My dad always told me, ‘When you don’t know what to do with people, just lean them up against a wall.'” We made a mental note to try that the next time we had to snap away.

“The idea was just to do a cool book that would piss people off,” Frey said. “People who appreciate what Terry and I do would love it and people who don’t, would hate it.” So, what’s next for the pair of provocateurs?

“I’m working on another book and a TV project,” Frey said. “The book’s about a 32-year old secular Jew in New York who comes to believe he’s the messiah.”

Sarah Jessica Parker lands show at Bravo

Aspiring artists to compete to produce various artwork

By James Hibberd

Sarah Jessica Parker (Getty Images photo)

Sarah Jessica Parker’s art competition reality show has found a home at Bravo.

The network has picked up “American Artist,” from Parker’s Pretty Matches production company and wunderkin producers Magical Elves, as part of its development slate. Bravo is expected to announce the deal Sunday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour.

The hourlong show has been described by the Elves team of Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz as a “Project Runway”-style competition series that takes on the art world. Aspiring artists compete to produce various styles of artwork (painting, sculpting, etc.), which is then judged by a panel of experts. The network declined to comment.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) – Ready for the latest in spa pampering? Prepare to dunk your tootsies in a tank of water and let tiny carp nibble away.Fish pedicures are creating something of a splash in the D.C. area, where a northern Virginia spa has been offering them for the past four months. John Ho, who runs the Yvonne Hair and Nails salon with his wife, Yvonne Le, said 5,000 people have taken the plunge so far.

“This is a good treatment for everyone who likes to have nice feet,” Ho said.

He said he wanted to come up with something unique while finding a replacement for pedicures that use razors to scrape off dead skin. The razors have fallen out of favor with state regulators because of concerns about whether they’re sanitary.

Ho was skeptical at first about the fish, which are called garra rufa but typically known as doctor fish. They were first used in Turkey and have become popular in some Asian countries.

The communal pool also presented its own problem: At times the fish would flock to the feet of an individual with a surplus of dead skin, leaving others with a dearth of fish.

Mass bum rap

Police were called to break up a mass “mooning” after 8,000 turned up to bare their bottoms at passing trains.

The Mooning Amtrak event in the California town of Laguna Niguel was shut down for the first time in its 29-year history after complaints that people were showing more than their bums, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Jim Amormino, a police spokesman, said officials deemed the event out of control after some mooners began taking all their clothes off and women started lifting up their T-shirts to flash passing trains.

The tradition is said to stem from a pub dare in 1979 when a drinker at the nearby Mugs Away Saloon promised his friends drinks if they went out to the railway line and mooned the next passing train.

Many rose to the challenge and the mass moon became a regular event, complete with a website, moonamtrak.org.

The crowd was broken up around 3pm but some mooners returned later and continued dropping their trousers into the night at the Amtrak and Metrolink trains which pass every 20 minutes.

In the website’s frequently asked questions section, organisers say it is “okay” to “decorate your butt” and encourage obese attendees to come along: “Yes yes, please ‘moon’ with us. We need people like you for the extra high intensity mooning you can provide.”

On Mustang Range, a Battle on Thinning the Herd

Marilyn Newton for The New York Times

A federal bureau has a captive herd of 30,000 mustangs and is proposing a euthanasia program.

GERLACH, Nev. — Five mustangs pounded across the high desert recently, their dark manes and tails giving shape to the wind. Pursued by a helicopter, they ran into a corral — and into the center of the emotional debate over whether euthanasia should be used to thin a captive herd that already numbers 30,000.

The champions of wild mustangs have long portrayed them as the victims of ranchers who preferred cattle on the range, middlemen who wanted to make a buck selling them for horsemeat and misfits who shot them for sport. But the wild horse today is no longer automatically considered deserving of extensive protections.

Some environmentalists and scientists have come to see the mustangs, which run wild from Montana to California, as top-of-the-food-chain bullies, invaders whose hooves and teeth disturb the habitats of endangered tortoises and desert birds.

Even the language has shifted. In a 2006 article in Audubon magazine, wild horses lost their poetry and were reduced to “feral equids.”

The Reviewers Come In From the Cold

From an engraving depicting an American alderman of the 19th Century; he doesn’t seem to like the book much

A review in Publisher’s Weekly tends to be a book’s first—some of the titles in last week’s issue won’t be on sale until the end of September—and for this reason, the dozens of reviews printed there each week, at about 200 words, are regarded as influential.

A “starred review” is a prize—a guarantee, almost, that booksellers, librarians, and book editors across the country will all take a look at a title when they get the galley in the mail. No guarantee that they’ll go for it—not even editor-in-chief Sara Nelson would ever argue that PW unilaterally sets the tone for a book’s reception—but in a field as crowded as this one, a mere look is a valuable thing.

Thus the reviewers of PW, who do not get bylines, have spoken as one as if from behind a drape for the past 136 years, their authority drawn from the classic (if not a bit fossilized!)PW brand and reinforced by the anonymity they are afforded by the magazine’s no-bylines policy.’

Who are these individuals? Enthusiasts, mainly. Schoolteachers, professors, stay-at-home moms, authors. It takes all kinds. We looked a handful of them up on Google, corresponded with a couple, and came up with some crude bios. Here’s an assortment….